BEGINNINGS
When I got the call from my college’s student activities office inviting me and a handful of other female classmates to join the Chicago audience for a taping of The Phil Donahue Show—it was a thrill! I prepped and read the daily news for a campus radio station segment a few mornings a week and was on the communications degree track, so it made sense that my friends and I were selected when the show producer reached out to the school for this opportunity representing young voices.
What they didn’t know—every morning as I readied for classes, NBC News' "The Today Show" aired on a small Sony TV in our apartment living room with Katie Couric (I’d meet up with her at Aspen Ideas this summer) interviewing guests and providing commentary on world events. John Brady’s Penguin Random House classic "The Craft of Interviewing" was a journalism course text (still on my office shelf), and I referenced its wisdom for article write-ups for the school newspaper.
In the Donahue Show studio that day, we were in another kind of class—a master class—watching him generously engage the audience and his guest Gloria Steinem. The experience fueled my communications career interests. These on-screen mentors—including his wife Marlo Thomas (with her “That Girl” rerun portrayals of a professional single woman), Mary Tyler Moore doing the same, and Oprah Winfrey—punctuated my aspirations, offering a variety of models for crafting a career. She acknowledged on Instagram, “There wouldn’t have been an Oprah Show without Phil being the first to prove that daytime talk and women watching should be taken seriously." Later in my professional journey, I’d find myself with authors in Oprah’s studio as they shared their stories to her audience.
An inventory of the adjectives in tributes this week regaling Phil Donahue and his work include “groundbreaking,” “pioneering,” “celebrated,” “trailblazing,” “legendary,” and “indelible.” Quite an impact for a life of 88 years. I wish he knew how he'd impacted mine.
When did you have an inkling you were on the path that would bring you to where you are today? Who helped pave the path for you? What path might you be trailblazing now for someone else?
